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May 2020 NEWSLETTER Dear parents, students, staff and governors, in these unusual times, please celebrate and enjoy the endeavours of our talented students. Mrs Wilson Pond Project For the students who are still coming into school NEWSLETTER during the lockdown we have been going on a daily walk around the lovely grounds of the school, exploring areas they have never seen previously. When we went to the school pond we noticed it was rather overgrown so we decided that we should clear it the following week. The weather wasn’t great, but that didn’t stop the enthusiasm of the students. They managed to remove a vast amount of pond weed and we identified a variety of invertebrates and some newts. Once we had cleared a lot of the weed we re-homed some tadpoles which had been donated from Beaucroft School, so hopefully we will soon have some frogs in the area too! Thanks very much to the students who helped to clear the pond and for the donated tadpoles. We hope that all students will benefit from the work they have done in future lessons. In addition to clearing the pond we have been going on nature walks to identify the local flora and fauna using our eyes and our ears. All the gulls have disappeared from the school site and we have a large variety of other avian visitors instead so it has been interesting trying to identify them all. Vicky Moore Assistant Headteacher PPE equipment being made at The Blandford School. The Blandford School Design and Technology Faculty watched the Covid-19 situation unfold and responded to the urgent need for PPE equipment by going into production for the local community. The team, led by Mr Dave Luxon, Head of Design Technology, are using their talents to manufacture face shields and masks utilising state of the art equipment normally being used by students. Mr Luxon’s appeal on Facebook for help with materials not only highlighted how generous the population of Blandford are, but also how much need there is in the local area for PPE. Amongst others, donations include polypropylene sheets for face shield bands from Bryanston School and Dorset Italian , along with the local company ‘From Blandford With Love’ have also donated acetate sheets for the face shields. Recipients include Poole Hospital Radiography Department (pictured - including ex-student Dustin Mackay); two local care homes; carers for adults with SEN who are supporting them in the home; The Forum School; St Ann’s Hospital, Poole and The Spire cancer ward in Southampton. Local businesses have included a food delivery team, a funeral director and Long Crichel Bakery. In total (so far) they have made over 400 products, and will continue to manufacture products as long as it has the resource to do so. The Blandford School would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has offered time, machinery, resources, financial support and delivery services. It is amazing to see how everyone is pulling together, across the community, to support those caring for us. The Blandford School staff and governors are extremely keen to support the local community during the Covid19 pandemic. Our 1000 students all live in the surrounding area and this is not an easy time for all children and families. We very much want to help the community in a practical way and as a result staff have and collecting for the Blandford Foodbank. Our third project is to raise as much as possible for the local community via Just Giving (link below). Staff and governors have started making donations and we would now like to open this to members of the public. Proceeds will be used to buy essential items that will go directly to vulnerable families linked to The Blandford School, all additional items will go straight to the local food bank in Blandford Forum. A big thank you to Dan Johnson, our Student Achievement Champion for setting this up and to everyone who donates. We really appreciate it. The closing date is June 29th 2020. Just Giving link: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/supportingblandfordforum TBS Student fundraising for a good cause. John Davenport in year 7 spent his Easter holidays fundraising for the Blandford foodbank. On Easter Monday John took part in a 12 hour sponsored socially distant relay walk/run with 4 other houses in his close. This consisted of 1206 laps making a total of 75 miles! Everyone put in their full effort. It was freezing and long, but they did it!! They were overwhelmed with the money raised, the initial target was £100, they smashed it and raised £1110 TBS Headteacher, Sally Wilson speaks to The Telegraph about the importance of school partnerships during the pandemic The national press have recently interviewed both Sally Wilson and Mark Mortimer, headmaster at Bryanston for an article on schools working together during Covid19. The two schools, along with eight Blandford primaries and Knighton House, form the Blandford Schools’ Network and have a strong professional partnership, meeting regularly and sharing good practice. Just prior to their schools closing and during lockdown, the headteachers of all the schools have been meeting weekly (virtually, of course). They have been leading their organisations to ensure maximum support of all children in their schools including vulnerable children, the children of NHS/key workers and children who are in receipt of free school meals/pupil premium funding. Remote learning has been high on the priority list as they and their colleagues work hard to support children, parents and carers until the lockdown is eased and children return to their schools. The group are also very pleased to have supported the wider community, most recently this has included the manufacturing of face shields and provision of PPE equipment to surgeries. Extracts from the article are below along with a link to the full article (which requires a subscription to The Telegraph). https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education-and-careers/2020/04/14/private-schools-working- narrow-underprivileged-attainment-gap/ A lot of schools have moved their learning online — but this can cause issues if children do not have access to the internet at home. “There are children who unfortunately don’t have the support at home in terms of technology, so with the sudden closure of schools my staff are providing learning over the internet and some children can’t access that,” Sally Wilson, headteacher at The Blandford School, a state secondary school, acknowledges. At her school, the teachers identified those children who did not have laptops, and the school has lent them laptops. However, there were not enough laptops available — so they reached out to Bryanston School, a local independent school which is part of the Blandford Schools’ Network of 11 local schools. Bryanston supplied 20 Mac-books and laptops to the children. It has made a huge difference, Wilson says. “They are able to learn over the next few weeks whilst we are in lockdown and hopefully they will be able to then be in the same position as their peers when they return back to school — so they won’t have lost learning time, which is essential.” At Bryanston School, 70 staff members have volunteered to help out at the local secondary and primary schools. A lot of the local primary schools are still open during the Easter holidays for key workers’ children, Mortimer explains, “so, to give their staff a break, some of my staff are going down to volunteer and run activities”. It’s not just academic staff who are getting involved. The cleaning staff at Bryanston have cleaned a local primary school, which is still open to children of key workers, to “give their cleaners a break”. Continued on the next page Bryanston has also lent their First Aiders to The Blandford School. “Because we’re a boarding school, we have a lot of First Aiders,” Mortimer explains. These actions have made a difference to the state primary and secondary schools. “It’s essential support that they’ve provided,” Wilson says. What impact does this have on schools? In normal circumstances, collaboration between schools is important, Wilson says, because “children in both state and private sectors can learn enormously from each other”. In the current global situation, it is particularly important that “we are doing our bit to help the NHS and help the children of those workers so they don’t fall behind in their learning”. Other practical barriers could include not having access to broadband, laptops, or adequate parental Milton Abbas Emily Faulkner Trust The trust makes a limited number of modest grants to assist students about to undertake university or vocational courses. Those eligible are students or former students of The Blandford School or those primarily resident in the North Dorset area. Anyone wishing to apply this year must submit his/her application no later than 20th July 2020. For further information and an application form apply to; The Secretary MAEF Blanchard Bailey LLP Bunbury House Stour Park Blandford Forum Dorset DT11 9LQ Or email [email protected] House Reading Competition - Spring Term Results The Easter totals were understandably affected by the lockdown with many students not re- ceiving the message about sharing their term's totals. From the results which were shared, however, it was noticeable that Beaumont had made a very strong comeback after a disap- pointing performance before Christmas to top the scoreboard. Students should continue to email Mrs Hayball until the end of the summer term with the titles of any books they have been reading to add to their annual total.